~ After 50 years, clearly gaming is lifelong

Sadly predicting death for 38 Studios

Dig into the Joystiq coverage to get a full sense of the troubles 38 studios has been facing. I don’t read joystiq all the time but browsing through its 38 studios stories for the past week paints the picture out pretty well.

See, here’s something I know about – audit reports. Pricewaterhouse gave 38 studios a “going concern” finding at the end of their previous fiscal year, June 30 2011. This happens if a company’s reserves, and revenues, are likely not going to be sufficient to keep the company operating over a longer-term period (5 years I believe). In short, the auditors gave a bankruptcy warning.

Sometimes they’re wrong. Auditors are not perfect, as painted in the popular media. I hear calls for “have an audit of their finances!” all the time, like it’s as easy as reading, and I just laugh because I know how fallible auditors can be. But after missing a small interest-only payment at the beginning of the loan term, with future loan payments set to roughly triple, and being unable to make payroll – they were clearly on the mark offering that warning.

In other words – don’t expect to play Copernicus developed by 38 studios, it’ll be bought and developed by someone else.